"Visiting
The English College, He Treated Familiarly With The Fathers, And Began
To Entertain Thoughts In His Heart Of The
Catholic religion." While
cogitating, he was "overtaken by a sudden and mortal sickness.
Therefore, perceiving himself to be in danger
Of death, he set to work
to reconcile himself with the Catholic Church. Having received all the
last Sacraments he died, and was honourably interred with Catholic
rites, to the great amazement also of the English Protestants, who in
great numbers were in the city, and attended the funeral."[167]
There is nothing surprising in these death-bed conversions, when we
think of the pressure brought to bear on a traveller in a strange land.
As soon as he fell sick, the host of his inn sent for a priest, and if
the invalid refused to see a ghostly comforter that fact discovered his
Protestantism. Whereupon the physician and apothecary, the very kitchen
servants, were forbidden by the priest to help him, unless he renounced
his odious Reformed Religion and accepted Confession, the Sacrament, and
Extreme Unction. If he died without these his body was not allowed in
consecrated ground, but was buried in the highway like a very dog. It is
no wonder if sometimes there was a conversion of an Englishman, lonely
and dying, with no one to cling to.[168]
We must remember, also, how many reputed Protestants had only outwardly
conformed to the Church of England for worldly reasons. They could not
enter any profession or hold any public office unless they did.
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